One thing I forgot to say in the last post on the other thread:- I'm thinking about buying a new helmet- I'm thinking about buying some new wheels

So far I have resisted these urges. I think I will use them as incentive to complete my current events. If I can break three hours at Noosa I will buy a new helmet. If I can break 2:45 I'll shout myself some new wheels too. There, I said it!

Swimming 5:30am Thursday (decided to go back to squad) about 2km over an hour or so (stopping for instructions from coach, waiting for other swimmers to finish sets etc).

Also running 7.6km at the beach on the weekend, took 38min 40sec. (will edit with extrapolated 10km time etc later)

Then went swimming at beach, thought I would head other the back and swim around the lifeguard's marker bouys a few times, but was doing it alone, and lost my nerve once I got out of my depth (it's a big ocean once you put those goggles on), so I ended up swimming about 150m before heading back to shore (WEAKNESS!)

Anyway, will have to make sure I take a gutsy buddy to push me along next time!

Didn't get to cycle as there was no room in the car for family AND bike (it was a close call which to leave behind, but in the end...)

1800m over an hour or so. Coach has stated that next Thursday will be a 3km time trial (which I am thinking will take me the better part of an hour and a half...) :/

Noted that my weight is up (had been fairly consistently 80 to 81kg for the last month or two, but this morning after a couple of weeks without weigh-in -- 85kg, ouch, lots of cake and beer on the weekend but surely that can't be the entire explanation.

SeditionTrial wrote:Noted that my weight is up (had been fairly consistently 80 to 81kg for the last month or two, but this morning after a couple of weeks without weigh-in -- 85kg, ouch, lots of cake and beer on the weekend but surely that can't be the entire explanation.

Maybe take some measurements around chest and gut. Remeasure when you do weighins. It might just be a buildup of muscle?

More swimming this morning at the crack of...About 1800m total distance: I tend to lose count with all the different sets and times and stuff.No overall time for a similar reason. 3km swim time-trial next week.

Was hoping to get off work early today for a pedal, but it isn't going to happen... and tomorrow morning there is an early meeting so it won't be then either -- so this week I will miss my mid-week cycle. I think I will bump it to Monday mornings from now on. Hopeful of doing a neopolitan session (ie one of each flavour) either Sat or Sun.

40km cycle (bike computer fail, so no time for this unless I can get one from one of the other guys); think it was probably somewhere between 28 and 30kph average.7km run (no time for this either -- forgot to turn on stop watch on the mobile phone) but I did run at a reasonable pace the whole way, unlike my friend who had to stop and walk, shame on him...finally 1.5km swim (36min). By the time I got to the pool I was just going through the motions, cos I was tired, so hopefully I can do a better time than that in the first half of the swimming time trial during squad training on Thursday.

First competition this Sat, in the Gold Coast sprintman event! This is held in the canals near Hope Island, so...

Remember, you don't have to swim faster than the bull-shark, just faster than the person next to you.

Parking and check-in were pretty well organised given the size of the event, well done USM. The price was pretty good compared to Noosa ($80 vs $200-ish) which seems a bit strange. I guess the Gold Coast Sprintman is cross-subsidised by the Gold Coast Half-Ironman, and there are a lot more people wanting to do Noosa, so it's a seller's market. Need to remember to take full water-bottles for my bike next time. I had half-empty ones, and noone could tell me where there was a tap to fill them up before the race!

The weather was pretty bad. It rained on and off all night before the event, and also throughout most of the event (fairly heavy rain at times too). So the roads were clear of debris, but there was a lot of water around. I saw a few flats, and also two people who had collided and ended up in a ditch on the side of the road... Not pretty Maybe this is one reason they make you check your bike in overnight: then you pretty much have to turn up for the event, rain, hail or shine. I am not sure whether I would have bothered to turn up if it hadn't been for the overnight check-in.

Deep water canal swimming... Frankly I was surprised that my time was less than 25 minutes. I have quite poor eyesight, and couldn't really see where I was going a lot of the time. I kept having to re-adjust my trajectory, and also was having to take a lot of extra breaths to sight the buoys and other swimmers. Nobody swam over me aggressively, but I did feel a little like a spawning salmon going around some of the markers. I finished 45th of the 46 competitors in my age group for this discipline! I will try to do a bit more ocean training between now and the next event in three weeks time (got a week's holidays the last week of October).

T1: well, I was being a bit of a nancy during T1, and sat around a bit, waiting for my back to dry so I could put on my cycling jersey. Also decided at the last minute to ride without socks (there was no point, my shoes were like bowls of water after a few km), which was a good idea. I think I probably lost a couple of minutes faffing around.

Cycling: I felt good on this leg, and I thought my time would be better than what I ended up recording. My bike computer seemed to think I had a better average than was recorded by the official computer, so I am guessing T1 (and maybe T2) is added to the cycle leg time, rather than the run or swim time. I had fun passing lots of people who must have slipped past me during the swim leg and T1, and I was giving them all a cheerful hello. Having said all of that, my finishing position was only 40th of 46 in my age group! A lot of those people I was passing must have been nice old chaps and ladies who just happen to swim better than me (not hard).

T2: I was happy with it, I think it was pretty fast. By this time I was sopping and knew I wasn't going to be dry anytime soon, so I just got on with it.

Run: surprisingly my best leg, I finished 21st of 46 in my division in this discipline, so I was really pleased. I felt stuffed at the end of the run, but I think I could have done another 3km for the full Olympic distance.

In the end I finished 38th of the 46 male competitors aged 30 to 34.

Getting home was a real hassle. They wouldn't let us back in to transition until the last team rider from the HIM was back through, so we waited in wet clothes and shoes for more than half an hour (although there was some cover from the rain thankfully). When I did finally get my gear back to the car, it took well over an hour and a half to clear the site (only road into the course was being used for the HIM runners and cyclists, and the dirt track which was serving as an exit for all the Sprintman competitors was being thoroughly churned up -- I was worried about getting bogged, luckily it didn't happen).

So... am I keen to do it again? Yes, but I hope it's not raining next time!

Swimming Wednesday 1.5km in 36 min (I'm going backwards!)Running Thursday 7km in 36 min (middle of the day, v hot, had just finished work, not a great time really).Swimming Friday 1km in 22 min (I didn't have time for the full 1.5km so I just did as much as I could, as fast as I could).

Weather is looking dubious for the weekend here in Brisbane, but I'm hopeful of getting out for a mixed session.

Sunday afternoon... ran 14km in 75min, I think that's approx 5min 20 sec per km. Farthest I have run in my life. Weather was too bad to cycle (I am afraid of wet bitumen). I have booked in for an indoor bike trainer session on Wednesday because it might be foul all week (haven't done ti before, but my friend who is a much better cyclist than me says it is fun and a good workout). Will try and get back to swim squad too, either that or a longer session on my own. I would really like to get my swim time down to 2min per 100m, but I think that might be a way off.

Indoor session went well yesterday morning: road was wet so I wouldn't have gone outdoors if I wasn't indoors. I sweated a lot, and got an idea of how much power I was putting out (not that much, maybe I need one of those bikes with the hidden electric motor in the downtube). I'll do two more indoor sessions before Noosa.

Swimming today, 1km in 21min, technically it's a PB, but I'm not that excited, it was in the 25m pool.Also a fairly uninspiring run this evening: 8.2km in 43min 50sec.

A friend and I did a reverse brick session this morning (running followed by cycle). It was going to be a neopolitan session (one of each flavour), but we ran out of time at the end (slept in). Decided to run first because the wind was unseasonably cold this morning in Brisbane (approx 10 degrees below average), and we wanted to warm up first. But the sky is blue and cloudless for the first time in ages. Reminds me why I started this outdoors stuff in the first place!

Indoor session this morning. According to the wind trainer, I put out an average of 250w over 40min. Also 10min warm up and 10min warm down. Have no idea whether this is good, bad or indifferent, or even meaningless because of difficulties with measuring power.

V busy week with work and family, so I didn't get to my swimming sessions during the week.

Got time for a run this evening. A winding route from my house in Greenslopes across town to Indooroopilly over the UQ pedestrian bridge. A couple of little hills and a bit of offroad through UQ, the golf course and some parks. 10km in 56min. Quite slow, but I didn't want to push too hard now that it's only a week until the main event!

This will be my last diary entry before Noosa as I am taking the family to the beach next week. Look out for the guy dog-paddling up the Sunshine Coast over the next couple of days -- it might be me!

I'll be stoked just to finish the event, but I have set myself a goal of 3 hours (achievable) or 2 hours 45min (optimistic). Race report to follow!

I wrote a detailed report the night after the event, but my laptop crashed (battery fail) as I was about to post it....

So I'll give it another shot:

Noosapalooza----------------

Week leading up to event: Sat, 1 week before the event: did 25km ride at 30.9kph rolling avgTues and Fri: two beach swims out the back between the flags 4 to 5 times, approx 500m per swim, untimedThurs: brick session 33km bike at 31kph rolling avg and 9.6km run in 50min.Sat, 1 day before the event: 20km ride, leisurely pace, untimed. Also Noosa canal swim, once around the island after we dropped our bikes off in transition, untimed.

Day of the event, got up at 4:15am, muesli with banana (breakfast of champions!), then into the car with my mate and off to the event. Dropped our stuff into transition, then waited around for 3 hours until our wave starts (the elites were in the showers before we hit the water). Made a series of bets with my buddy: $5 for each leg, and $5 for the overall win.

Slow swim time, 36min 47, felt like I had been passed by almost everyone, and that turned out to be the case! I was 291st of 305 finishing competitors for this leg. $5 down, but my friend's bike was still on the rack when I got out of transition (he started 4min behind me in the next wave, and he is also pretty slow in the water -- but otherwise the bike rack was practically empty.

Bike was ok, I didn't draft off anyone, although I probably could have. I hit 74kph on the way down the hill, that's a new record for me. My bike computer showed an average of 31.3kph for the leg, but with transition included, the official result was 121min 10sec, for an average of 29.5kph. (233rd of 305 competitors in my age bracket).

At the last minute, I had decided to put gatorade in my drink bottles rather than water, and I think that might not have been a good move. The stuff was tasting quite sickly sweet by the end of the first bottle, and I was hanging out for some plain water. Next time I will either dilute it, or take one bottle of sports drink, and a second of just water. A funny thing happened as I pulled up to the dismount line. Someone decided it would be a good idea to zip past me over the last 10 metres, and then do a quick dismount. Actually it was so quick they did a clip-stack, and almost took me out too! I was a bit peeved, but I managed to stay upright as I ran past them.

I was about the leave T2 when I heard my friend arrive. Oh no! $10 down! So I got out of there before he could put his shoes on, and tried to concentrate on my running rhythm. I managed to get into a good groove, and finished in 48min 36sec, for an overall time of 2:46 and 36 seconds. Sadly my mate died toward the end of the run, and he finished 2min (6 minus 4) behind me overall, so I got my $10 back, hooray. Run time was 135th of 305, and overall time 226th of 305.

I had my partner and mum there to cheer me on during the run and bike, which was really nice.

I had set myself some goals before the race of sub 40min swim (tick); sub 80min bike (cross) and sub 60min run (tick), for an overall time of sub 3 hours (tick). Sub 3 hours means I am entitled to a new bicycle helmet. I just missed out on my new wheels by a minute and a half (sub 2:45). I had them picked out already -- Fulcrum 3's. Oh well, maybe next year!

We managed to get an awesome park earlier in the day, and there were no traffic snarls getting out of town either. I was a bit sore earlier this week, but three days later and I can't wait until Mooloolaba in March: I might sign up for the Caloundra short distance thing later this year. I still haven't broken it to my poor partner, I think she would kill me.

How did everyone else go? Did all those half IM and IM kilometres make the difference for you CB?

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